Player of the Week - Akos Buzsaky
This week’s player of the week is Hungarian international Akos Buzsaky, a flair player who got the fans off their seats with some spectacular goals during his time at the club.
Buzsaky was born in Budapest and started his career at his hometown club MTK Budapest where he made his Champions League debut. He moved to Loftus Road in October 2007, initially on loan.
QPR fans instantly fell in love with him as he made his debut in a 2-0 win over Hull City. Rangers had been struggling upto that point but the new owners and new manager brought a fresh start and fans quickly had a new hero.
He was skilful, had great vision and had a knack of scoring some brilliant goals. An away trip to Scunthorpe saw him score these two beauties as he stages his own goal of the season competition that year.
Injuries began to play their part though and he missed the start of the 2008/09 season before returning with a goal in a win over Nottingham Forest. He picked up a knee injury in November which ended his season and Rangers season never really got going without him.
He returned to action the following season and looked back to his sparkling best in a brilliant attacking line up alongside Adel Taarabt, Jay Simpson and Wayne Routledge. They were a joy to watch and Buzsaky announced his return with two goals in a 5-2 win over Barnsley.
In a mad week in October QPR ran riot with Buzsaky at the heart of everything good about the team. He scored a penalty in a 4-0 win over Preston before scoring a spectacular free kick as 10 man QPR beat Reading 4-1. He added another penalty in a 4-2 win at Derby as it looked like under new manager Jim Magilton that QPR would be pushing for promotion.
Of course at QPR things find a way of going wrong and a 3-1 defeat at Watford saw an altercation in the dressing room where it was alleged that manager Jim Magilton headbutted Buzsaky. Magilton was sacked and QPR badly struggled, slipping towards relegation.
The arrival of Neil Warnock as manager of course changed things around and Buzsaky scored in his first game in charge as we beat West Brom 3-1 at Loftus Road. Buzsaky seemed to be enjoying his football again and in a crucial game at Crystal Palace he opened the scoring to give us our first win in 8 games and keep QPR in the Championship.
What followed was for many the best season in the modern era for QPR as we absolutely roped to promotion winning the division. For Buzsaky an injury in preseason saw him miss the start of the season and he never really got a run in the side despite featuring 19 times that season. He certainly contributed to that promotion but was not the star many his early time at QPR suggested he would be.
He still remained hugely popular and he played his part in the Premier League making 21 appearances in the top flight and scoring 2 goals to help QPR stay in the top flight.
Across his time at QPR he made 127 appearances and scored 24 goals. Those included 5 penalties and he scored twice on 3 occasions.
His time at QPR is about a lot more than bare numbers though, a wonderful graceful player to watch with skill, a great range of passing and a scorer of some unbelievable goals. It says everything about him that his name is still sung at matches today and he’ll forever be remembered by QPR fans for his time at the club.